waiting room
by rozete
Summary: we all deal with our demons in our own ways. some are more productive than others. (alternatively; haru dissociates and things have changed.) canon au. lapslock.


**authors note** : _this is vv messy and i promise i'll come back and edit it! i wrote this all in one chunk and ngl this is my current coping strategy so i projected a lot (haru is actually m ? obsessive? blind? hell ye ah!) i haven't written for khr in like 10284948292 years so pls excuse me if i fucked up some details ! im currently rereading the manga so ((-: this is crossposted to my ao3 pseud_ harururu _(my acc is rozete!) so since fucked up my formatting u can read the proper version there if u like haha,,_ anyways, _enjoy my shitty take on mental illness in khr (bc lbr canon should have been fucking traumatising)_

* * *

 **waiting room**

0\. (a) haru.

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 **audience.**

haru likes to watch.

there's a reason she always takes the back seat beside the window that looks out onto the schoolyard and, beyond that, the woods that surround her campus. she stares out at the lovely blue sky and wonders how far it stretches, how high up she could go before she would begin to choke and her body lost control of itself. a classroom is perhaps the perfect setting for the story of her life, she thinks to herself. the constant noise of the teacher lecturing on a topic they all have already learned, the orderliness uncharacteristic (or perhaps, perfectly representative) of young women who all fight for their ambitions without hesitation, the isolation of this seat that serves as both a gateway to the outside world and a reminder of her detachment from it.

she thinks the contradictions (all these contradictions, should they not begin to agree with each other at some point?) are what make the watching fun.

it's an unspoken truth at midori middle that the courses are entirely for show; after all, even an establishment catering to the brightest young women of the prefecture can only do so much before the minds housed within surpass it in knowledge and greatness. academics can hardly be competitive when the students are on level ground in terms of the academics judged; rankings mean so much but they also mean nothing. (can they be considered arbitrary if they're all genii? but if so, how could the same people continue to rise above the masses despite the even playing field?)

instead, competition turns to extracurriculars.

haru joins gymnastics at the first chance she gets, obsessed with the feeling of flying (not falling). she becomes better and better and better (they're midori girls, it's what they _do_ ) but she never reaches high enough to pull the stars from the sky.

* * *

 **falling.**

the funny thing is, haru is afraid of heights.

there's a reason she never takes the bridge beside namimori park when she walks to school. it cuts across the river separating the town's northeast and southwest, the road continuing directly onto the path to midori middle. it is the quickest way to and from school. but there's the river. it rushes beneath the bridge so quickly, banks steep and perilous and the

in truth, it isn't such a terrible river. it freezes over in the winter and there are fish in the spring, but it's just so so fardeepwide and haru's hands feel clammy whenever she passes near it. not worth the trouble, she's always told herself, taking the longer path that leads through the woods before arriving at her school. after elementary, she briefly considered attending yumei, or even namimori middle, but she knew she couldn't. instead, she takes the path through the woods twice each day, once in the early morning before sunrise, and a second time after the sun sets but the sky still hasn't darkened.

(haru finds it strange, though, as she dismounts the parallel bars. when she spins and jumps and flies, haru doesn't fear a thing.)

* * *

 **expectation.**

'what are you planning on doing with your future?' haru's father asks one day as she prepares their dinner. by then, it's routine for haru to wait until he comes home before she cooks (or sometimes, he cooks).

haru turns at the sudden interruption, her hands stalling above the countertop.

'what do you mean?' it's not a question she'd like to hear.

'these things are important, haru. it's something that you have to consider in these coming months.'

his words are heavy with expectations and subtle admonition and she hates receiving this from him (he, who remains distant as ever despite their amicable relationship, who has never pushed her in any direction even when she's needed guidance, who just doesn't seem to understand what a parent is aside from thinly veiled threats and vague encouragements) and so she turns away.

'of course, papa.'

the conversation moves on, but the expectations that rose in those few moments remain there, simmering just below the surface. haru doesn't feel comfortable chatting with him for a while after that.

* * *

 **i/ro/ha.**

words are fun. haru enjoys playing with words, placing them into strange sequences that curl upon themselves like some strange serpent. the words never go away. she reads them and writes them and speaks them and they become a game of sorts, manipulating each character and phrase into a host of different meanings so her speech is both ornately simple and austerely convoluted. among her words are drowned sentiments, lost in the frivolity of a babe in crib strangling a language into shapes too complicated for her to comprehend. she grows up and continues on playing with the words in ways no one else can, _the words are gifts_ the adults tell her, _they're the gift of giving the world around you meaning_ they explain.

.

.

haru's words lost meaning early on.

* * *

,

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 **mirrors.**

(if the metaphor of herakles [lonely, selfish, mad herakles] hits too close to home, haru would be the last to admit it.)

* * *

 **dreams.**

sleeping is strange for haru. haru doesn't dream when she sleeps, so her nights are filled with an emptiness that still isn't quite dark and the taste of electricity lingering on her tongue when she wakes (she prefers it this way, it's comforting and lovely and maybe it feels like home).

.

except, sometimes she does dream.

,

it's scary.

not so much when she's dreaming but when she wakes up because it feels all too real, as if the world has continued to go on and she's watching and things are changing and moving on without her ( _without her? no this isn't right because the world can't can't can't move on without her nobody else is moving on without her she refuses to be left behind_ ) like she's watching through a strange lens, like a television show that she can't turn off. she watches and hears like normal except it's just a bit more far away and she can never bring herself to care about what's happened too much. it isn't too bad, except for the hollow feeling she gets every time she wakes up and the strange otherness that hangs over her for the days after.

a lot of the times, she remains in the same place same time same space but sometimes when she wakes up, she's somewhere else and her legs are sore or her hands are scraped and she doesn't remember a thing. those are the times she thanks whatever celestial being out there that namimori is still a safe place despite the dying mothers and neglectful fathers.

those times, she knows she isn't asleep.

* * *

 **mothers.**

she remembers the exact moment her mother dies.

her memory has never been the best, but everything on that day has remained clear. the sky was clear and cloudless, and she clutched her mother's hand as they walked to the grocers. their preferred locale had been in the southern half of town, so every friday evening after school, her mother would take her to pick up groceries for the coming weekend. that had been back when her father still commuted to work, leaving early in the morning before she woke up, and returning late at night after the sun had set and the moon had risen and haru-chan was most definitely in bed and asleep. [by that point, only her mother was awake, staying to greet her husband when he returned home.]

she still remembered that route (down the street, a left and a right, across the bridge and two blocks down), though she hadn't step foot on it in years.

her mother had left her in the cereal aisle with an empty grocery cart and told her to stay put ('i'll see you soon, okay dear?') and walked away. she had stayed put (back then, haru-chan was still obedient, no matter how loud) and waited. and waited. now, time had passed differently in the eyes of little haru-chan but as the bell tower (the only one in the town, located by the only train station) struck thrice, she knew that far more time had passed than it should have.

she exited the store, waving good bye to the friendly ojii-san at the register, the grocery cart left stranded in the aisle. as she retraced her steps, she wondered what her mother was doing when she left. perhaps she had forgotten her wallet-?

she turned onto the open bridge and began to cross. something bright flashes in the corner of her eye and she turns in confusion. two headlights stare her down and they're coming closer and they're nearly here and she can't move her feet have been glued to the ground and then there's a scream and down she falls and then she doesn't remember quite so well because there are some strange thud noises (noises with an s, multiple sounds that sound awfully blunt and unnatural) and her head hurts quite a bit. the motorcycle doesn't stop though, continuing off into the distance even faster than before.

she tries to stand but it's too hard when the world is spinning, so she crawls instead, blinking the spots from her eyes. then, her hands meet wet, sticky pavement. she watches the red pour from her mother's hair and chest in the dying light of day, as the reds bleed into orange into the blue of the sky and the river glistens (shining blue like the red scarlet seeping onto greygrey concrete) and as her eyes flutter shut and her breath finally fades. she's distantly aware of the gravel scraping at her hands and the stains on her once-pristine uniform but, in that moment, nothing exists but them. she stares and stares and her vision blurs out of focus and the funny thing is even years later, she can recall the blurriness of those moments as the sun set.

eventually, the ojii-chan comes and his startled shout is enough to move her from her trance. the ambulance arrives and the paramedics rush to the body, pushing haru-chan aside with her bloody palms and skinned knees, but before they even reach the hospital her mother is pronounced dead.

(after she grows up, she likes to romanticise the moment, telling it over and over again, sometimes with austere sharp words and others with flourishing prose, but always more and more and more than it was really. she ignores the taste of copper that bursts on her tongue and how the world seems just a bit redder in those moments.)

she doesn't remember.

( later on, they tell her and her father that the woman had perished to save her daughter and that it was a terrible accident and that we are so sorry for your loss now will you please sign here and no matter how hard she tries haru-chan cannot reconcile her mother (her fiercewonderfulbeautiful mother) to the lifeless woman the fished from the water. she only looks at the body once and she regrets because all she remembers now is blue skin and blue veins and something very cold. when they open her eyes, they're bloodshot.

haru-chan turns away and doesn't look again.)

* * *

 _._

 _._

 _somewhere that feels far away, but really isn't, in a time only a little bit before, a lovely woman tells her son 'your father has become a star'. he wonders when he'll become a star too._

* * *

 **sequel; fathers.**

 _after the wake ends, her father doesn't look her in the eye for two months. he grieves silently, locking himself away in a room each day, only coming out for food. haru-chan teaches herself to cook and clean and wash herself after it becomes clear that there will no longer be anyone doing it for her. (by that point, it has been three weeks since that day and the sympathy gifts of food and money have run out for several days. it's the first time haru-chan experiences the gnawing hunger that comes with sorrow and starvation. this hunger will return several times in the years to come.)_

 _then, her paternal grandmother visits and ends up staying for the next months. she brings the small family together in a way that, while isn't complete, is more than they have on their own. her father returns to work, but he comes home earlier and spends weekends locked in his study with numbers and letters and mathematical concepts that just barely escape her grasp._

 _she eventually leaves town, leaving father and daughter to recover from the loss of the last thing holding them together. haru doesn't speak to her father for four months after that._

(it is no coincidence that she spends her youth in the mathematics club. still, nobody says a word when miura-sensei's daughter shows up with her wide eyes and silent stares.)

(after all these years, she thinks she understands, because the numbers and letters and strange concepts have never failed her or left her or abandoned her with no clue where to turn.)

(when she's eleven, her second grandmother dies in her sleep. this time, there are no long months of grieving. the wake ends, and they return to their lives. nothing has changed if they don't say anything has, right?)

(her father brings her to midori middle one spring day, a month before her tenth birthday. they take the path through the woods. _this_ , he tells her, _will be the first step to your future. you will come here_. and so she does.)

(haru drops the -chan. it's too childish, and doesn't suit the uniform of her new school.)

* * *

 **watching (2).**

haru likes to stare out the window in the afternoons. their home is too empty, and when she looks outside she can pretend that things are different and the world is perhaps a little kinder. she watches the young boy (he should be her age judging by the uniform, but his face and figure look so _young_ ) as he gains companions, first a baby and then the silver boy and a taller one with a brittle smile. they speak to a girl sometimes, right outside her door, and she wonders what their lives are like. do they play sports together? basketball or football, perhaps? who is the baby, dressed so curiously as he is? what about the girl?

(in truth, haru definitely wonders about the girl, who seems far too pretty to be speaking with boys of any kind. haru doesn't have the best opinion of men, but she thinks it's rather justified.)

she watches them each day and catches the dark eyes of the baby one too many times for it to be a coincidence. they unnerve her, shocking her down to the core. she wants to know more about this child who can bring people down with a single look.

still, she has been raised with manners, regardless of how unconventional they may be, and one of these manners is to mind your own business. she wonders if her neighbours do the same, watching these children pass by each day as their group grows more and more curious, but never saying a word. the curse of a small town's normalcy is that nothing is ever normal, but nobody will ever say a thing.

she keeps watching.

* * *

 **bird bones.**

when she was a child, she wondered if perhaps the women of her family were cursed.

from the death of her grandmother (which she can never remember its too far to grasp) to the death of her mother (which she remembers all too clearly as if it was stamped on the backs of her eyes) she'd though perhaps there was some connection. perhaps she would be next. it wouldn't be a lie to say that the prospect of a curse (of seeing her lovely lovely mother again and holding her and being with her) wasn't a relief to her young wandering mind.

perhaps she would die in a hospital, the first to do so (her grandmother on a bed, her mother on a pavement) surrounded by sorrowful friends and family. or perhaps, the curse would catch her at night while she slept, and she wouldn't even know she had died at all. her mind swimming then drowning with the possibilities, and she never considers how odd it is to consider such things to haru, there's nothing odd about it at all.

( but then, looking at her father and how he seemed to be so hollow as if somebody had taken his bones and scraped out the marrow and sponge and veins leaving them hollow like bird bones, she thinks perhaps it wasn't they who had been cursed at all. )

* * *

the ironic thing with academic ranking in a school of genii is that it means so little, haru thinks, staring at the bulletin that placed her first in the class. she holds her test papers, clenching her fists until they crush beyond salvation. then she leaves campus. (technically they're allowed to leave, right? there aren't any classes, only study halls for exams that have long since ended, and nobody cares anyways?) she walks and walks until she reaches the little park just down the street from the bridge. and she sits.

and stares at the sky. the papers (stupid, useless papers) stay shoved haphazardly in her bag.

and then at some point, she dreams. or doesn't dream. she isn't sure of the difference, at that point.

and then, she's gone.

* * *

 **interlude.**

gokudera chases yamamoto down the street, hollering obscenities that would never be heard in a neighbourhood as calm as this one. the other young man laughs, continuing to sprint down streets he knows like the back of his hand, intending to head towards the park. tsuna runs after them both, wondering how his life managed to become something as troublesome as this. gokudera growls, a strange sound that's awfully feral for such a handsome young man, and pulls out a stick of dynamite, lighting a cigarette.

they head towards the river.

they arrive at the bridge.

seeing the park ahead, yamamoto slows, enjoying the view of the river below and the sky above. in a lapse of judgement, gokudera sees the opportunity and throws the dynamite. hearing the familiar explosion, yamamoto chuckles and sprints away once more with stamina honed by years of sport, leaving the quickly-crumbling bridge. gokudera screams and follows, jumping across the wreckage and lighting a second stick.

only tsuna sees the figure of the girl thrown by the blast from her perch on the edge of the bridge.

she doesn't move, her expression doesn't change, and when she hits the water, she sinks.

* * *

 _she sees something dark in the far far distance. a pair of shiny black shoes catch her eyes and the smell of gunpowder envelops her._

* * *

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haru thinks the falling feeling is the worst thing in the world.

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* * *

 **reborn!**

a shot rings in the air.  
he jumps in after her.  
he wonders if the hesitation will cost the girl her life.

* * *

 **olfactory.**

she watches as the river approaches and feels something akin to concern twitching in the back of her mind. there's something terribly wrong with this, she tells herself, but she can't seem to grasp what-? then the falling stops and instead everything is cold and she's tired and she just wants to rest. so she does. in her sleep, she dreams of screams and yelling and sighs of relief, of the smell of home-cooked meals and cologne, of too many people and too much noise. then the dream ends and she sinks into a dark, empty sleep.

* * *

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 **interlude.**

reborn contemplates what she will do if she joins la famiglia. he has seen her (as he has seen everyone in this strange little town) and her gazes at the tenth generation and he knows that wanting (that all-consuming desire, what a familiar feeling) can take her great places. still, youthful spirit is easily crushed and ambition without conviction is just as fragile. cosa nostra has never been kind to little girls.

* * *

 **enlightenment.**

haru wakes up. she's sitting by the big tree in the centre of the park and her uniform is stiff, as if it had been wetted and dried in the sun. her hands smell like cigarettes and gunpowder, and haru wonders how she recognises the smell before shaking her head. the sun is about to set, and the sky is beginning to colour with the golden orange rays peeking from beyond the horizon.

haru walks home in a daze, putting one foot in front of the other methodically as she struggles to remember what passed in those hours that led her to where she is now. haru scours her mind for the answer, something telling her that those hours have been important, have been defining and life-changing and nothingwilleverbethesameagain, but there's nothing. all that she's left with is that uncomfortably persistent smell, the image of shiny leather shoes, and too many questions with too few answers.

still, haru holds on _tight_ to these things and refuses to let go.

* * *

 **rendez-vous.**

despite the strange happenings of the day before, she still goes to the cake shop in pseudo-celebration (first may mean nothing but it's a good enough excuse for her). her booth is in the corner as always, and she makes light conversation with the friendly server who recommends her far too many teas and not enough cakes. she sits, waiting for her order, as the store begins to fill up with customers. her cake arrives (hibiscus lychee crème with a cookie crumb bottom) and she savours each bite, the sweet hibiscus cream light on her tongue. a girl with hair like honey makes her way over to her table, smiling affably.

'sorry, do you mind if i sit here?' there's something about her and her lily-white skin and sugar-sweet voice that makes haru's stomach crawl uncomfortably. she forces a smile regardless.

'sure!' she keeps her voice light, feeling a strange need to remain as cheerful as possible in the face of adversity (what adversity? its just another middle school student, she tells herself. the voice of her inner mind is oddly strained).

she rushes the last bites of the cake and leaves.

 _it wasn't rude_ , she tells herself. _i was about to leave anyways._

the other girl watches her depart with wide eyes, and wonders why the girl from the bridge left so soon.

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* * *

 **performer.**

she stays by the gate this time, watching that same group walk up the street. the baby in the fedora and shiny black shoes meets her eyes with those shiny dark holes and smirks in a manner that unnerves her more than she cares to admit. it seems like an invitation. she accepts it.

 _hahi, what a cute baby you have there!_

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(she doesn't let go)

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* * *

 _so, for those of u who dont know, dissociation is kind of like,, feeling a sense of disconnect from reality. it can be vv mild (actually! dissociation itself is a natural process bc ofc we'll have things that dont seem as real and as pressing to us than others,, its only when its a part of your personality and decision making process (i? dont remember the word?) that it becomes problematic) or vv severe, sometimes culminating in dissociative identity disorder (the accurate n proper way of saying multiple personality disorder). it often occurs as a result of trauma (often involving a psychological (? idk words im sorry) element where the individual was in danger and esp at a young age, where we can't really process trauma), or as an indicator of irregular brain function. here, haru experienced a deep psychological trauma (which is first introduced in the death of her mother, tho dw! i have more in store for her just u wait (-:) which is part of what probably triggered the beginning of her dissociation. she also has a mediocre relationship w her father which doesn't help At All. so! that's the premise of all of This_

 _pls ! give me feedback bc my poor soul needs it haha_


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